In a conventional Hartford I.S. type of glassware forming machine a plurality of independent, or individual sections, are operated in timed relationship to one another, and each such section receives gobs of molten glass from a feeder, the gobs being received at the blank side, or station, of each machine section usually in upwardly open blank or parison molds. Preliminary parisons are formed, usually in an inverted orientation in these blank molds, being subsequently swung over to the blow side for final forming in the blow molds. A neck ring mold cooperates with the blank mold at the blank side to form the parison, and moves with the parison to support it during transfer to the blow side of the section. Various components within each machine section act upon the parison at the blank and the blow stations, and all of these components including the neck ring transfer mechanism are operated under the control of a conventional timing device.
The reader is referred to any of the disclosures in the many patents issued on the timing features of a typical glassware forming machine of this type, and more particularly to the Ingle U.S. Pat. No. 1,911,119 for a more detailed discussion of these features of a conventional Hartford I.S. type glassware forming machine.
Both the blank and the blow molds each include two mating half sections which are mounted on mold holder arms in the conventional machine. The conventional arms are carried on a common hinge pin and are movable by a fluid motor through a suitable linkage under the control of the timing device. However, these pivotally mounted mold arms have disadvantages, some of which are related to the differences in degree of mold opening provided between a double or triple gob machine configuration. That is, the mold halves adjacent the hinge pin necessarily open less than do those more remote from the hinge pin. Simply increasing the angular travel of the pivotally mounted arms cannot be tolerated in an already overcrowded machine due to space limitations within each of the machine's several side-by-side sections.
Another disadvantage to the conventionally movable mold halves is related to the requirements for cooling the molds. Fixed cooling air towers are currently used so that the molds move through a continuous "wind" or air flow pattern in the conventional machine. This approach to cooling is not only wasteful, in terms of cost of cooling the machine, but is also quite noisy and difficult to achieve the desired temperature distribution at the forming surface of the mold.